> I bought a bag of Chee-tos today to eat with my lunch, and the vending machine gave me a shiny new New Hampshire quarter! It's got the Old Man of the Mountain on the back and the New Hampshire motto: "Live Free or Die" on it. Also has the date 1788 on it, which I presume is the date NH became a state.
>
> We all know who lives in New Hampshire, don't we? I'm waiting to hear Sam's appraisal of the new coin.

New Hampshire's state motto is the coolest motto of any state, any country, any anything in the world.

And the Old Man of the Mountains is such a quintessential image of New Hampshire that the coin COULD NOT have had anything else on it. Some people here think we go a bit overboard with it -- the state route sign symbols have the Old Man's silhouette around the number -- but it's more than just a geological feature: it's a symbol of all kinds of glorious abstract nouns -- freedom, nature, hard work -- and a historical symbol, too, of the strength of will, determination, and dedication it took our early settlers to survive. It's hard to convey this to someone who hasn't at LEAST seen the Old Man first hand and delved a little into the history of Franconia Notch.

> I rather like it, even though I now know that the Old Man of the Mountain isn't a true geological feature anymore...and I learned right here on the Message Forum!

Well.... It's true that it probably wouldn't be still there if it weren't for the chains holding it in place. However, the shape it's in now is as it was found eons ago, so the artificial intervention has only been to preserve what was already naturally formed.